Tag Archives: gold

The Mountains are Calling..

“The mountains are calling, and I must go.” – John Muir

Welcome to the start of the 2017 Alaska mining season! To those of you just joining our story, we are a family of gold miners from Alaska. For some reason that I will never understand, folks like to hear about our trials and tribulations while trying to dig our fortune out of the ground. For those of you who have followed us in the past, thanks for tuning in again!

I understand what Muir was saying about the call of the mountains – I’ve been hearing it for some time, though the snow didn’t seem to be cooperating. Thankfully though, Spring is finally upon us and its time to start setting up. First piece of equipment – the recently repaired backhoe- is on site.

While there is still snow in places like the creek – there are some signs of Spring – we even found a patch of violets.

The camp looks pretty lonely right now, looks like we shouldn’t have left our supply tent up (we lovingly call it the taj mahal) I guess we had a big snow load here this winter!

The dog couldn’t resist a wallowing in the settling pond. We’re not the only ones excited to be back at the mine!

Both our new and old dig sites are not quite thawed out, but that is ok, as we still have a bit of staging to do. You may remember that last year we had a magnetometer survey done to help us find that “good pay” and we are really looking forward to following up on one of the “hot spots” from the survey and seeing what kind of values are there. This spring I can tell you why there is most likely good gold there – the water is just pouring out there, draining from up on the canyon rim. You can literally hear the water trickling down.

More to come – just thought I’d let you all know the news. IT’S MINING SEASON!!!!

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In the meantime

Bet you didn’t think to see a post in March? No, we’re not mining yet. The claim is still snowed in. Spring is in the air though. We’re getting more daylight. I’m seeing puddles here and there and we’re scrambling to get all the routine maintenance and minor repairs done on the equipment. In this post, wanted to share with you something we’ve been working on over dark days.

Have you ever gone crashing off through the brush to try a pan in an out of the way creek you’ve had your eye on, got the good stuff panned down, and SHOOT- you forgot the black sand magnet? Most black sand magnets are pretty bulky and don’t just fit in your pocket. This winter, we set out to solve this problem.

Technology is great, in today’s world, its almost like you can just imagine something and -boom-it appears. Meet the Kudo 3d Titan 2. Its a DLP printer, which basically means it uses a light projector to harden a resin and bring your creations to life. While that sounds pretty easy, this project had a lot of failures before we got a workable prototype. We also had to find the right magnets, springs and glue to assemble the pieces we printed.

We’re calling her “Ruby” until we get a better name. We’re pretty pleased with the outcome. At six inches long, it fits right in your pocket or prospecting kit. The magnet is pretty strong, and its great for getting that pesky black sand out of the way. It doesn’t seem to pick up the gold like the bigger magnets do. One of our friends that has the blue bowl says it’s the perfect size for getting in there without messing up the flow.

If you decide to try one, be sure to give us your feedback. We’d love to hear of any suggestions you have to improve the design. The next post will be about the operation, I promise. In the meantime best wishes to everyone and hopes for an early mining season!

Consider

Fall Colors

I would enjoy the beauty of this time of year more, I think, if it didn’t make me so sad to realize its almost over.

Backhoe’s still in the shop, we’re making due with what we have.

Besides, it means I get to spend a lot of time in the digsite manning the excavator. I love looking for big rocks, bedrock, clay layers and other things that spell good gold. Every layer is a new possibility. See that smile?

I have to be careful to pay attention and not get a huge overhang going, its easy to get to excited about a bedrock ledge or something and undercut too much. Occasionally we have to knock it in. Here’s a little video, I just love that slow motion feature on the iphone.

We’re almost to the little anomaly we saw on the mag survey, looks like we will have to move the caution fence soon!

All was well, until, you guessed it, we broke something. A sharp piece of slate hiding in the mud popped a hole in the sidewall of the dumptruck tire. Quite the sound it made.

Turned out we had to take off for a wedding so we had to clean out earlier than we normally would. But the results weren’t bad. Even found a few nice pickers, must have been under that big rock I was digging at.

Just the two of us

The leaves are starting to turn, and thus begins the bittersweet chapter of mining season. With the kid back in school, and most of the rest of our crew gone, its up to just my husband and I to save what’s left of the season. Thanks to grandma for getting the kid to school during the week, we are able to work as long as we have daylight, skip lunch, and get up early.

Mining in the fall is not so bad; less bugs, more bears. Though we haven’t seen a bear yet this season (knocking on wood).

The backhoe is still in pieces at the mechanic’s shop, but we simply couldn’t wait anymore. Time to try out the little dump truck that we’ve had for a while but never taken up to the mine.

It takes a little longer because we first have to use the excavator to load the truck from the dig site. Second, stockpile the stuff at the washplant. Then third, drive the excavator back over to load the washplant. But it worked pretty well. In fact, we might make this truck part of the process for next season and save the miles on the backhoe.

Also, thankfully, we finally got the report from the geologist on the magnetometer survey. There are a lot of very promising prospects including possible some bedrock source gold. I think I’m going to work on the permits to expand the place we were testing last time, as the report agreed with our test results. We really can’t tell anymore about this spot until I get permission to clear some trees and make some road improvements. In the meantime, there’s a couple of small hotspots we’re headed towards at in our current digsite that we hope to break through too soon.

I’ve been fighting with this dang rock for days with the excavator, but I bet it’s where the gold is coming from. I’ll get it soon.

Pretty good results, less than usual because the process is a little slower, but better some gold than none.

Also more of the crystaline gold in this cleanout.

Testing, Testing, 1, 2, 3

With the backhoe still in the shop, we decided to make the most of the downtime and test one of the hot spots that showed up on the magnetometer survey. Its important that we know where we are aiming for next season, so I can start working on the permitting this winter.

We’ve had our eye on this spot since we bought the place. We call it 700, named after the rumor that a previous owner got 700 ounces in one small spot somewhere on our claims. We don’t know where he found it, or if this is really true, but we’ve always joked that OUR 700 ounces would be found here. Its a natural drainage down into the canyon from up hill.

Problem is, there’s so much water and muck coming down this area that it stays frozen through much of the spring. Then, when it thaws, it turns into a soupy mess that’s easy to get equipment stuck in. However, it turned out to be one of the largest hot spots on the survey that we can easily access, so we decided to revisit it. Imagine, all that money we invested in the magnetometer survey only to find out what we already knew!

We got the excavator in there, sure enough, it’s just as I remember. Wet, muddy, clay ridden material. Dug as deep as we could and panned a sample.

We found a few colors, so, decided to run a few buckets.

Honestly, it was fun to work this way. It reminded me of the old days when we first started out. Shoveling, filling buckets, and being thrilled with the smallest amount of gold. In the evening we we’re the kind of tired that only comes from a long day of physical activity.

Pleased with the bucket test, we loaded the small pickup size dump truck and got a few yards up to the trommel. It was slow-going to run, the wet material didn’t want to go through the grizzly, but we were pleased with the results. The gold seems larger and in more concentration than our current digspot. 700 is definitely a contender for next season.

Constellation Mining Company

Gold Mining Blog – Alaska Gold Panning Paydirt for sale